


Disastrous

by Anonymous



Category: Actor RPF, The Disaster Artist (2017), The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room - Greg Sestero & Tom Bissell
Genre: M/M, Masturbation, POV First Person, Unhealthy Relationships, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-12 07:38:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11732529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: In some ways, The Room was like a creepy, off-the-wall $6 million love letter to me.





	Disastrous

**Author's Note:**

> oh my god. I don't even know. I'm sorry.

Tommy had invited me over to his place again to look over his work on The Room. He had decided to work it into a screenplay rather than on stage, and for him, it meant extensive re-editing.

Tommy’s idea of adapting a stage play into a film script meant more special effects, more obvious dramatics. Longer and with more settings. The story was no longer confined into the one room conceit.

He pondered over where to stick in a green screen - he talked about gun props - and I let his constant stream of ideas wash by me, interjecting with the occasional 'that's interesting, sounds perfect' comment.

"Come on, Greg," he said, for once, noticing my exasperation. "Be supportive. You know this is my dream coming true."

It was. Even if it was absurd, seeing Tommy's enthusiasm in force was revitalizing. I'd let my Hollywood inspirations drift away, becoming a pretty boy salesman selling upscale fashion clothes that I couldn't even afford for myself, and then Tommy had swept into my life again.

"Of course," I told him, turning up a slight smile at him. "The scene with Chris-R threatening Denny felt like something out of a Al Pacino movie. Although I think your helicopter suggestion might be unnecessary."

Tommy had proposed a scene where Chris-R had attempted to escape from the roof by a helicopter (how? I wondered. Were there really weed-peddling street dealers out there who had their own private helicopters?). Mark and Tommy then executed ninja-like tackling and disarming action to commandeer the helicopter, sending Chris-R plunging from the sky.

"Maybe you're right," Tommy conceded. "Stuntmen are trouble. Too much to pay. I can do my own stunts."

He flexed his arms, showing off that he'd been working out lately.

"And you can do your own stunts, too," he went on to say. "Ha. You're not as strong as me."

"For the last time," I said, sighing, "I'm not playing Mark, remember? I can help with production stuff, but, Tommy, please look for someone else."

The previous time we had this conversation Tommy had caved in, saying that I could help him with the search for the right actor.

Tommy grunted. “Remember you are essential. My script is a _reflection_.”

I remembered. The script was a reflection of life as filtered through Tommy, stilted dialogue and all.

The day before, I mentioned to Amber how Tommy had evidently drawn inspiration from our real life friendship.

"Isn't that weird?" she said, frowning, biting her lip. "That guy - he's not how I thought he would be. He doesn't seem a little eccentric, but just _bizarre_. Doesn't that mean he's, like, obsessed with you or something?"

And for a fleeting moment, I thought about Tommy challenging me in his car about trust, jealous of my semblance of a career, jealous of my other friends.

More comically, I thought about my mom: _No sex_ , she told Tommy sternly.

I had scoffed then; I scoffed now.

"He has his quirks," I said, putting a hand underneath my chin. "But it's not like that. 'Write what you know' - that's what most people do."

I explained the random football scene, telling Amber about the time Tommy and I had tossed a football back and forth at Golden Gate Park.

"Mm," she said, when I finished. "So you're saying it's not a logical scene in the story, but you know the context. I guess it's like you're the only one who can make sense of him sometimes. A Tommy-Wiseau-to-human-being translator."

That wasn't true at all. There were plenty of times when I couldn't understand him.

It was just some little things. I knew his awful sleeping schedule; I knew his cravings for See's chocolate; I knew his infatuations with James Dean and Tennessee Williams and Marlon Brando and youth.

Now, Tommy presented me his updated script with a flourish and pointed out a scene. We had been doing line-readings, usually with me as Mark and him as Johnny, of course.

It was the dramatic suicide scene near the end. It wasn’t too much unchanged: Tommy trashing the room, searching for the gun, and--

Oh. This was new. I could feel my eyebrows climbing high.

_HE REACHES IN AND PULLS OUT MORE OF LISA’S CLOTHES...HE LIES ON THE CLOTHES, UNZIPPING HIS ZIPPER. HE IS BREATHING HARD AND WRITHING WITH PELVIC THRUSTS._

It was the oddest suicide scene I had ever read before in my life.

I don’t think anyone would want to see a main character humping his cheating future wife’s clothes before killing himself.

Tommy was looking at me intently. Then he turned and dug around in a nearby Street Fashions USA shopping bag. He withdrew a red faux silk scarf and said, “Show me. You play Johnny this time.”

I had no idea what to say to that at first. Was he crazy? Was he joking? In front of him -- what the hell?

“Tommy,” I said, “I’m not doing that.”

“Think of story,” he told me. “Think of Johnny’s suffering. You are professional actor, young man. You should be used to love scenes.”

First of all, I really wasn’t an actor. For the last couple of months, I worked retail. Second of all, I had never done very explicit scenes before, and who on earth calls perverse ‘clothes humping’ a love scene?

The thing was, Tommy was serious and he was determined. When he was like this, he wouldn’t budge.

Quietly, I said, “Don’t tell me to do this.”

“It’s just two of us. No cameras. No audience.”

And he twisted the red scarf in my hand. It was soft, transparent material.

I looked down at it. “No.”

“Don’t argue,” Tommy said. “You are stubborn, sometimes bad friend, but you call me, you listen, we talk. Do this for me like you’ve always done.”

As if I was a puppet, he took my fingers loosely clutching the scarf and positioned them on my lap. His own hands - large, gripping - curled against my wrist and felt like they could leave bruises.

With a shudder, I don’t know why I shifted my hand, but I did.

“Good,” he said. “Good.”

It was sick. It was wrong. But Tommy had told me to do it, and he was watching with a narrowed darkened gaze, and it was like he hadn’t left my life at all.

My head bowed, my mouth parted. I was moving my hand and not really feeling anything, and then tightness, warmth, bursts of sharp shock arousal.

My breathing was picking up. On Tommy’s couch, beside him, I was feeling myself leaning back, falling into a more reclining position. The shape of my own dick through the scarf and my pants--

I wanted to plead with him: _Please, please don’t look at me. Tell me to stop._ But I didn’t.

I didn’t.

Suddenly, Tommy said, “I thought of you when I was away.”

His voice was dreamy, floating, as if I wasn’t there. “When I was scared. I thought, I want to take Greg on Planet Tommy and it would be two of us in the dark of space. No failing, no unopened letters to agencies, no acting classes with no result, no silence.

“We will have big tower with our own cameras and sets. And a theater with red velvet seats. Filming scenes together then watching it on the big screen, with the stars--real stars--outside the window.”

There was a lump in the back of my throat. I could see it, too. Tommy over earnestly monologuing and forgetting his lines, while I tried to prompt him in the right direction. All against the backdrop of his own planet.

I felt like a dumb twenty-year-old kid again, mesmerized by the pirate in Jean Shelton’s class.

I shivered and trembled the moment when I came, the stickiness stuck there in my boxers.

Tommy smiled. He said, “You did good, babyface,” touching the stubble on my chin.

He took the red scarf from my hand, his eyes closed, and holding it up to his face, he breathed in the smell of me.


End file.
